The government’s internationally unique strategy is premised on the idea that the majority of us will inevitably get the coronavirus and for most of us it will be merely an unpleasant experience from which we will recover. Letting the healthy get it, with the more vulnerable kept physically separated from the majority, in the expectation Britons will develop herd immunity and because immune people cannot infect others; in the long run we’ll have less fatalities. It is a difficult sell politically.

The famous morning television epidemiologist, Piers Morgan, is one of those demanding everything is banned. In the long run this is unsustainable. The difficult challenge is not seeing the health services overwhelmed by high risk cases, delaying is about keeping the infection rate at a level which the NHS has the capacity to handle. Overwhelm the NHS and you are in a situation where it becomes necessary to implement battlefield triage procedures.

A Chinese-style lockdown might slow down cases initially only to see a second wave, and even a third wave, follow on with devastating consequence as with the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Unless of course a vaccine is developed before the inevitable second wave in a population without herd immunity. There are no certain choices in this pandemic.

See also: Top 5 Videos on Herd Immunity